‘Adonais’ Unites Life and Death

I

       I weep for Adonais—he is dead!

       Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears

       Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!

       And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years

       To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,

       And teach them thine own sorrow, say: “With me

       Died Adonais; till the Future dares

       Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be

An echo and a light unto eternity!”

III

       Oh, weep for Adonais—he is dead!

       Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!

       Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed

       Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep

       Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;

       For he is gone, where all things wise and fair

       Descend—oh, dream not that the amorous Deep

       Will yet restore him to the vital air;

Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

XXVI

       “Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;

       Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;

       And in my heartless breast and burning brain

       That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,

       With food of saddest memory kept alive,

       Now thou art dead, as if it were a part

       Of thee, my Adonais! I would give

       All that I am to be as thou now art!

But I am chain’d to Time, and cannot thence depart!

LIII

       Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?

       Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here

       They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!

       A light is pass’d from the revolving year,

       And man, and woman; and what still is dear

       Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.

       The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near:

       ‘Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,

No more let Life divide what Death can join together.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Adonais shot by José Luis Sánchez
Adonais shot by José Luis Sánchez

CREDITS:
Art direction and stylist: 
Estefania Orozco Jaramillo @estefaniaorj

Makeup: Lidia Herrera

Photography: José Luis Sánchez @hosseck

Model: Luisa González X Capital Model @luisazelaznog @capitalmodel

Clothes: Aviesc & Octágono

Subvrtmag

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